The invention relates to power-driven conveyors generally and, more particularly, to belt conveyors having rollers supported above the conveying surface on or adjacent to flights to prevent articles lowered onto the conveying surface from resting atop the flights.
Many conveyor applications require that conveyed articles be separated into individual groups atop a conveyor belt. Flights extending upward from the belt's conveying surface and across its width at spaced intervals are used to divide the belt into bins. A conveyed article or a group of conveyed articles is separated from another article or group of articles in a neighboring bin by an interposed flight or other bin divider. Flights are also used to help push articles up inclined paths and to form registration surfaces against which articles can be registered. In some applications, articles are fed to a conveyor belt from a position above the belt. If the belt has flights, it is possible for an article to be deposited onto the belt in a position leaning against the top of a flight. If the position of a conveyed article is important, it may be unsatisfactory to strand articles leaning against flights and costly to require manual or automated intervention to re-position leaning articles.
Thus, there is a need for a belt conveyor that can separate articles in bins without stranding articles deposited from above against flights or other bin dividers.